Maia Valerio, a student in Penn State's Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, created this Slice of Pennsylvania on WPSU. It's a series where people in central and northern Pennsylvania talk about the everyday sounds and places that are meaningful to them.
Valerio talked with Jack Ray, who runs Treaster Kettle Farm in the forested hills outside of State College. He practices agroforestry, essentially farming in the woods. Ray sells honey from bees he raises, shiitake mushrooms, and free-range eggs and chickens.
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Jack Ray:
“A forest is far more ecologically diverse than a field of corn, right. Here, there's squirrels and mice and birds and deer and bears and bobcats and foxes. All that wildlife can still live here, and I can farm in this land and make a living off of it without having to clear all the trees.”
“I didn't really think I would end up being a farmer, but I am. And it's amazing the number of different professions. I have to be a plumber, an electrician. I have to know how to construct and build. To understand soil science. I have to understand insect pathology. And you got to be creative and, you know, work with the materials you have on hand.”
“Part of the reason I do all this is I don't really trust the industrial food system. I want to know that what I'm eating, and especially my kid, is healthy. That's good for him. And the animals are happy and treated kindly. But also just, you know, I'm not using pesticides. I'm not using growth hormones. I'm not using antibiotics or anything like that on these birds.”
“People eat my eggs, they buy my eggs at the farmer's market, and then they'll come back and they'll be like, ‘These don't taste like the store-bought ones.’ There's more substance to it. It just has more texture. And you can see the yolk will be like deeper, darker, brighter yellow. Which is beta carotene and vitamin A, so they're richer. And people tell me that they can taste the difference and they come back and they're like, ‘I want that.’”
“And it's partly that (the chickens) eat a more diverse diet. But I also think it's partly because they're happier. I think they have a pretty good chicken life.”
Click here to listen to more episodes of WPSU's Slice of Pennsylvania.